Explore PwC

I am not sure if it was the jet lag, not being acclimatised to the temperature at night or whether everyone was keen to get started but day 2 started bright and early for everyone on 5th Avenue in Midtown. Today was focused on providing some insight to our companies on some of the things PwC US are doing in the start-up and emerging companies space.

First up was the Techstars programme in New York for IoT start-ups. PwC's sponsorship of this programme in NYC gave us an opportunity to get behind the scenes, thanks to Niko Pippalof for hosting, and we got an chance to meet the 12 start ups on the programme as well as some time with the MD of the IoT programme Jenny Fielding. Jenny provided some real insight into the start-up ecosystem in New York, how the Techstars programme fits into this ecosystem as well as the aspirations to bring the programme to the Emerald Isle.....we pitched hard on the rationale for placing the programme in Belfast....fingers crossed!!! A tasty Mexican feast with the current class of Techstars concluded a really interesting morning.

An hour of free time between lunch and our afternoon session provided the perfect opportunity...not for an iced coffee.....nor for an opportunity to take in the sights...instead each of the crew were squeezing in a quick 30 minute meeting with potential customers, partners or supporters, maximising the limited time in NYC.

The afternoon provided a great opportunity for the companies to hear from some of the experts in PwC, who spend their days in the emerging companies space, shoulder to shoulder with VC's, digital partners as well as tax and legal guru's. The afternoon was all about understanding some of the challenges that face companies trading in the US e.g. state tax, federal tax and even city tax in some instances....we only think we have tax challenges in the UK. But knowledge is power and so we are now better equipped to look out for some of the pitfalls of working in the US. It wasn't all tax though as we had some great insight from the US Digital partner, lots of follow up contacts and a few more engagements to squeeze in before the flight back to Dublin.

Just about enough time to realise that we had travelled to New York in a week were the UN council were bringing the city to a standstill before we moved to the heady heights of floor 24 on 300 Madison Avenue for dinner in the PwC Boardroom with two of the most influential people in PwC in the US. A massive thank you to Brendan Dougher and Martyn Curragh for their very open and engaging approach with our companies, providing some real insight, challenge and generally good craic in what was an extremely enjoyable dinner for all concerned.

Hard to believe that day 2 is already at a close but as promised I have captured the first of our company profiles for Cyberlytic, and we are privileged to have St. John Harold in New York with us this week.

Cyberlytic

Cyberlytic is a Web Application Security analytics company that evolved out of work developed in 2013 for the UK Ministry of Defence and GCHQ. They developed a security solution that uses Artificial Intelligence to detect web application attacks such as SQLi, XSS and File Injection. Cyberlytic uses advanced machine learning techniques to classify the attack data, identify threat patterns and detect anomalies. By analysing web server traffic in real-time, the Cyber Threat Profiler (“Profiler”) detects and immediately determines the sophistication, capability and effectiveness of each attack. This information is translated into a risk score to prioritise incident response.

Cyberlytic’s patented classification approach (US and UK) is more effective at detecting sophisticated attacks than traditional, signature-based security solutions and adapts to new or evolving threats without requiring any manual intervention.

The Profiler increases the effectiveness of security teams and prevents high-risk attacks: